Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson and Timo Werner are all pushing to return to full training for Tottenham this week, as the club's chronic injury crisis finally begins to ease.
After Sunday's defeat to Aston Villa in the FA Cup fourth round, Ange Postecoglou, the Spurs head coach, said he hoped to have "three, maybe four, players back this week, with the possibility of one or two others in the week or two after that".
Postecoglou is confident the return of so many first-team players will be a "reset" for the struggling club, who have slumped to 14th in the table and crashed out of both domestic cups in the space of four days, leaving their season hinging on progress in the Europa League.
Goalkeeper Vicario has been sidelined since suffering a fractured foot in the 4-0 win over Manchester City on November 23, while left-back Udogie pulled up with a hamstring strain in the home draw with Wolves at the end of December.
Maddison has been out for around three weeks with a calf strain, while wingers Johnson (calf) and Werner (hamstring) have been missing since mid-January.
Striker Dominic Solanke is a little further behind the first batch of scheduled returnees, with Postecoglou forecasting he would be out for around six weeks with the knee injury suffered in training in the middle of last month.
The prognosis for Richarlison, who pulled up with a calf strain in Thursday's 4-0 defeat at Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final decider is less clear, while Postecoglou has described both Micky van de Ven (hamstring) and Cristian Romero (thigh) as "slow-burners", with no timeline on the return of either centre-back.
Postecoglou has given his players Monday, Tuesday and Thursday off during the first free mid-week since the turn of the year, with Spurs hosting Manchester United on Sunday before another clear week ahead of the visit to Ipswich Town.
Speaking after the 2-1 defeat at Villa Park, Postecoglou said injuries and the cumulative effect of the schedule on his available players is the reason for Spurs' slump.
"Two and a half months of asking 18-year-olds and 17-year-olds and senior players, with no rest, to play Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday," he said. "If you think that is not at all a factor of how this team is performing then there's nothing else I can say. There's nothing else I can explain."
